WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) – The Pentagon said on Friday it had reached agreements with seven AI companies to deploy their advanced capabilities on the Defense Department’s classified networks as it seeks to diversify the range of AI companies working across the military.
The statement notably excludes Anthropic, which has been in dispute with the Pentagon over guardrails for how the military could use its artificial intelligence tools. The Pentagon labeled the AI start-up, which is widely used across the Department of Defense, a supply-chain risk earlier this year, barring its use by the Pentagon and its contractors.
SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, NVIDIA, Reflection, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, several of which already work with the Pentagon, will be integrated into the Pentagon’s Impact Levels 6 and 7 network environments giving more of the military access to their products, the Pentagon said in a statement.
The Pentagon’s main AI platform GenAI.mil has been used by over 1.3 million Defense Department personnel, the agency noted in its release, after five months of operation.
Google, which is already used within the Pentagon, has signed a deal enabling the Department of Defense to use its artificial intelligence models for classified work, a source told Reuters earlier this week.
Defense Department CTO Emil Michael on Friday told CNBC that Anthropic is still a supply chain risk, but that Mythos, the company’s artificial intelligence model with advanced cyber capabilities that created a stir among officials and Corporate America over its ability to supercharge hackers, is a “separate national security moment.”
U.S. President Donald Trump said last week that Anthropic was “shaping up” in the eyes of his administration, opening the door for the AI company to reverse its blacklisting at the Pentagon.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Chizu Nomiyama )
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